“If you have a warmer atmosphere, you’re probably going to get more rain, so in the mid-latitude you could get a sequence of big storms,” said Gordon McBean, professor at Western University and director for research at the centre for environment and sustainability.

“The first couple of them could deposit all of their rain over the Interior of B.C., making the flow down the Fraser even larger, then at the same time, the winds blow the ocean over Georgia Strait, then you’ve got this extra water in the Fraser River running past New Westminster and hitting Ladner, the airport and areas under the Oak Street Bridge.

“This water is coming down the river at the same time as the wind is pushing the water from the Georgia Strait towards it so you get this kind of double effect.”

“In an OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) report, Vancouver is rated 15th (in the world) for exposed assets, with $55 billion at risk, and 32nd in terms of population at risk, with 320,000 people exposed,” CCAR says, listing the infrastructure at risk in Vancouver as highways, sewer systems, waste treatment facilities, shipping and ferry terminals and the airport.

Farmland, residential and industrial areas would be at risk, and about 220,000 of the 320,000 people at risk in the area live at or below sea level, protected by 127 kilometres of dikes that were not built to withstand sea level rise.

In January 2011, the province of B.C. released new sea dike guidelines and new guidelines for use of coastal land that is at risk of flooding. It predicted sea levels would rise 1.2 metres over 100 years, although the rise is not expected to be uniform across the province and there is uncertainty over how quickly the rise will occur.

“If things go really badly, and our emissions really take off — which quite honestly, they are taking off; we’re way above the worst-case scenarios that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based all of its projections on — (the 1.2-metre sea level rise) could happen in 50 years,” Harford said. “In the very worst-case scenario it could happen in 20 years.”

METRO VANCOUVER - Combating rising sea levels due to global warming could cost $9.5 billion in flood-protection improvements in Metro Vancouver — including sea gates at False Creek and Steveston — by 2100, according to a report released Tuesday by the B.C. government.

The report, Cost of Adaptation - Sea Dikes and Alternative Strategies, covers the Metro Vancouver coastal shoreline and the Fraser River downstream of Port Mann Bridge — an area with more than 250 kilometres of shoreline...

The Delcan report singled out three areas in the region for potential special protective measures:

- False Creek: A $25-million sea gate would allow the movement of water and boats through during normal water levels but would be closed during storm conditions to limit sea levels and reduce the height of shoreline defences needed around the perimeter of False Creek.

- Steveston: Use Shady Island as part of a breakwater/barrier with a sea gate to protect a densely developed waterfront with historic buildings at an estimated cost $10 million.

- Mud Bay, Surrey: Sea gates at the mouths of the Nicomekl and Serpentine rivers at a cost of $10 million each, along with a "managed retreat" or gradual decommission of development in the area....

Seismic upgrades would be prohibitive on some stretches of dike, including on a total of 35 kilometres of dikes in Richmond and Surrey fronting the Fraser River, at more than $80,000 per metre. Options could include realignment of the dike, construction of a wide "superdike," or limited seismic ground improvement, the report found...

A big sequence of rain storms, you say? Winds blowing across the ocean? This truly is a brave new world.

I don't say. It's the scietists who do the thinking, research and concluding. Of course, you are smarter than them!

The point is that the governments will spend billions. And, it will not be enough in some areas. Is it your area?

Funny - you discount experts when they talk about RE in Vancouver (unless they are front line realtors who are seasoned with 5 years of experience in the biggest volume and price increase period we've probably ever seen) but want everyone else to take the scientists for their word.

Interesting double standard.

George Carlin once said "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

The point is that the governments will spend billions. And, it will not be enough in some areas.

Doubtful, on both accounts.

What? Do you mean that you don't believe climate change is happening?

Fact is that rising global temperatures have been documented. Sea levels are rising.

Do you think that governments aren't going to spend the money for defences? No way. Hurricane Katrina and Sandy have given a clear heads up. Scientists are collecting data and building models. Planners are planning and governments are tallying the cost.

It is cheaper to avoid the problem than to fix it. Failing that, it is much cheaper to try to fix the problem than to ignore the problem.

Can seawalls etc protect complete protection. No?

The problem is this. You can build seawalls and dykes higher. But, you can't ignore physics. Once the water level is above the ground level, you can't drain runoff from rain. Does it rain a lot in Vancouver?

IN Holland, they have build windmills to pump water from flooded fields over the dykes. But, they have now bowed to the inevitable. Sea and river levels will now be higher than reclaimed land. They are going to allow some fields to flood. They are preparing to build homes on floating pontoons.

Venice is doomed because of the sinking ground and rising tides. What Vancouver-area waterfront homes are threatened? What areas are reclaimed land?

The point is that the governments will spend billions. And, it will not be enough in some areas.

Doubtful, on both accounts.

What? Do you mean that you don't believe climate change is happening?

Fact is that rising global temperatures have been documented. Sea levels are rising.

Do you think that governments aren't going to spend the money for defences? No way. Hurricane Katrina and Sandy have given a clear heads up. Scientists are collecting data and building models. Planners are planning and governments are tallying the cost.

It is cheaper to avoid the problem than to fix it. Failing that, it is much cheaper to try to fix the problem than to ignore the problem.

Can seawalls etc protect complete protection. No?

The problem is this. You can build seawalls and dykes higher. But, you can't ignore physics. Once the water level is above the ground level, you can't drain runoff from rain. Does it rain a lot in Vancouver?

IN Holland, they have build windmills to pump water from flooded fields over the dykes. But, they have now bowed to the inevitable. Sea and river levels will now be higher than reclaimed land. They are going to allow some fields to flood. They are preparing to build homes on floating pontoons.

Venice is doomed because of the sinking ground and rising tides. What Vancouver-area waterfront homes are threatened? What areas are reclaimed land?

Simple solution Jim. Get out of Van, and into the burbs. Like Heritage Mountain right accros the mountain to Burke.

So jimmy said I missed the dip in Richmond last year. And now prices have fallen even more with no balance in sight! The poor old man is just too old and grumpy!

The climate change consensus is based on a vast amount of research done around the world by a multitude of institutions. One important organization is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Founded in 1988 by forward looking scientists. IPCC is accredited with the UN. It compiles and analyzes the work done by research scientists. It's reports are key moments in our progress to understand climate change..

Today, there is scientific certainty that global climate change is coming and it will change our world this century. There is overwhelming evidence that human activity is the main agent of that climate change.

Currently, the issue being studied is the rate at which global warming is occurring. The latest models strongly suggest that temperatures change is accelerating at a rate that should frighten intelligent people.

A great deal of effort is underway to understand how changing temperatures affect weather and oceanic systems. We will see stronger storms because the ocean generate more energy for storms. In addition, ocean circulatory systems will change profoundly when (not if) the temperature differential between northern oceans and southern oceans narrow.

With a better understanding of global systems, scientists are now preparing models for micro-climate in your region. The article in the OP is based on a regional model.

The IPCC scientific consensus has been checked by scientific bodies around the world. Many scientific and meteorology organizations have endorsed IPCC's work.

“In 2005, the national science academies of the G8 nations (including the National Academy of Sciences) plus science academies of Brazil, China, and India (three of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world) signed a statement on the global response to climate change. The statement stresses that the scientific understanding of climate change had become sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.”

For this important and very technical work, the IPCC and research scientists collectively were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

I believe in climate change but I think the term "global warming" is highly misleading. Despite the warming trend I prefer to say "massively increased weather volatility" as demonstrated by hurricane Sandy.

Over the next couple of decades it appears that one of the major impacts on the Lower Mainland will be dramatically increased annual rainfall (Charlotte Islands style). I probably won't be alive to see Richmond, Delta, False Creek, Gastown, etc., flooded but I do think it's going to happen eventually.

In fond memory of Taipan, a model of modesty, decency, dignity and tolerance. Long may we all prosper from the tremendous legacy of worldly wisdom and specialized real estate knowledge which he left in the "Arguments" thread.

Where to begin? I don't really want to turn this thread into a huge debate on "climate change"... so I won't. What I'm suggesting is that no politician in their right mind is going to allocate scarce resources to fixing something that may become a problem in 100 years. Who knows, maybe I'm wrong, maybe the government will decide to build a higher dyke around Ladner instead of the Broadway corridor rapid transit line. That would be a popular decision, no? I suppose I also revealed my personal opinion that I think the alarmist predictions are overblown. To that end... I can't resist. The following link points you to a graphic that compares observed temperature anomalies to IPCC model projections. I guess the trouble with making long-term predictions is that they can eventually be proven incorrect. As you can see the actual observed temperature anomalies have been hovering around 0.4c the last ten years, right at the lower bound of all the IPCC model projections, with the most recent set of observations falling below the lower bound. Oops.

Funny - you discount experts when they talk about RE in Vancouver (unless they are front line realtors who are seasoned with 5 years of experience in the biggest volume and price increase period we've probably ever seen) but want everyone else to take the scientists for their word.

Some thought that Shiller might be a candidate for a Nobel Prize for Economics in 2012. Of course, Shiller didn't win. The award went to two guys "for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design”.

Shiller does command a lot of respect in the finance industry because he challenges the people who have misapplied the random walk hypothesis.

Shiller believes that financial markets are periodically mis-priced because of irrational exuberance. This phenomenon is familiar to any operator in the financial markets. So, no Nobel Prize here.

"The second edition of Irrational Exuberance published in 2005 is updated to cover the housing bubble, especially in the United States. Shiller writes that the real estate bubble may soon burst, and he supports his claim by showing that median home prices are now six to nine times greater than median income in some areas of the country. He also shows that home prices, when adjusted for inflation, have produced very modest returns of less than 1%/year. Three years later, the housing bubble burst, an event partially responsible for the Worldwide recession of 2008-2009.

There are some economists who challenge the predictive power of Shiller's publication. Eugene Fama, the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at The University of Chicago has written that Shiller "has been consistently pessimistic about prices,"[1] so given a long enough horizon, Shiller is bound to be able to claim that he has foreseen any given crisis."

Shiller did useful work with stock price, earning and dividends. As stocks are essentially electronic commodities, stock prices cannot long move ahead of earnings growth. He is more cautious about RE. Emphasis added by me.

“On CNBC's "How to Profit from the Real Estate Boom" in 2005, he noted that housing price rises could not outstrip inflation in the long term because, EXCEPT FOR LAND RESTRICTED SITES, house prices would tend toward building costs plus normal economic profit.”

So, occupancy rates do matter!

Shiller was timely in his 2005 warning about the bursting of the RE bubble. However, he also made bearish comments in 2007 about Canadian RE. Sorry! No goal this time. Similarly, he made a bearish valuation of American RE in mid 2011. But, we now know that 2011 was likely the bottom.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- In an off-hand remark before cameras and microphones, economist and housing market guru Robert Shiller opined earlier this year that he would not be shocked if there was another 10% to 25% in the nation's home price plunge -- and he's not backing down from that statement.

At a S&P Housing Summit in New York, Shiller on Thursday reiterated his fears of falling home prices. It's not a forecast, he said, just a comment on his understanding of housing market trends.

He explained that speculative markets, like stocks or commodities, act like random walks. They go up and down all the time. Housing market direction tends to be more consistent.

"I worry that this is a real and continuing downturn, like in Japan," Shiller said. "It had a boom in the 1980s that peaked in 1991. Prices declined in the major cities for 15 straight years after that."

The U.S. housing market is hard to predict because the boom and bust it went through was unique. Shiller has studied historical price data back to the 1890s and found nothing like it.”

So, Canadian bears should take note. You may claim that Canadian RE is like the American (or Japanese) bubble. But, the fact is that the American bubble was a unique occurrence based on a combination of lax government, stupid bankers/investors and a post-911 climate.